Attachment to mothers and fathers during middle childhood: An evidence from Polish sample

Kamza BMC Psychology
(2019) 7:79
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Open Access

Attachment to mothers and fathers during
middle childhood: an evidence from Polish
sample
Anna Kamza

Abstract
Background: Middle childhood is a significant period of change both for a child’s cognition and social functioning.
Considering that the primary developmental theme of attachment in middle childhood is the balance between
child’s growing autonomy and the constant need of relatedness, cultural differences in developmental trends in the
attachment might be considered as a function of individualism and collectivism orientations. However, little is
known about whether the findings on predictors of individual differences in the attachment in middle childhood
found in Western cultures, hold within the non-Western ones. Moreover, still little is known about differences
between attachment to mothers and fathers in middle childhood. Hence, one goal of the present study was to
investigate the role of a child’s age, sex, and emotionality in a middle-childhood attachment to mothers and fathers
in the Polish sample. The second aim was to compare obtained results to the attachment research that focused on
Western cultures.
Methods: The sample consisted of 132 children aged 8–12 years (51% boys). They completed the Kern’s Security
Scale and the Coping Strategies Questionnaire. Mothers completed a child’s EAS-C and short sociodemographic
questionnaire. Pearson’s correlations were conducted to test relationships between a child’s age, sex, emotionality,
SES, and attachment-related variables. A paired-samples t-test was used to compare the intensity of preoccupied
and avoidant coping strategies with parents in the whole sample. The effects of a child’s age, sex, temperament,
and attachment figure were tested with separate repeated-measures ANOVA.
Results: Some of the results replicated prior studies conducted in Western cultures. Similarly to the individualistic
cultures, older Polish children reported less preoccupied and more avoidant coping strategies with their parents

than younger children. Second, older girls reported higher felt-security with their fathers than with mothers, which
suggests some significant changes in attachment relationships regarding the child’s sex. However, as opposed to
Western cultures, there were no links between the child’s sex and preoccupied and avoidant coping. Polish children
also reported higher rates of preoccupied coping than the avoidant one. Finally, children with relatively lower
emotionality reported higher attachment security with both parents than children with relatively higher
emotionality.
Conclusions: The current study extends previous work on attachment in middle childhood, the area of rather
sparse research, as compared to other developmental periods. The findings reveal the existence of both some
specificity in the middle-child attachment in the Polish sample, as well as some culture-universal developmental
trends. However, as many questions remain unanswered, they also highlight the strong need for future crosscultural and comparative studies.
Keywords: Attachment, Security, Avoidant coping, Preoccupied coping, Middle childhood

Correspondence:
SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Psychology
and Law, ul. Gen. Tadeusza Kutrzeby 10, 61-719 Poznań, Poland
© The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License ( which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
( applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.


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Background
Middle childhood represents a significant period of
change both for a child’s cognition and social functioning. As children become more autonomous and selfreliant, they begin to spend more time away from their
parents and start to expand their social networks. They

also assume greater responsibility for their behavior [1].
Further significant changes in emotional and cognitive
functioning emerge that are also employed in the service
of attachment processes. As children begin to develop
the capacity for abstract reasoning, as well as cognitive
flexibility, they become to employ alternative plans of action [2] better. Development of memory and metacognition lead children to better understand different
points of view, more effectively regulate their emotions,
clearly communicate about them, and to take care of
themselves [3]. All those changes manifest in a more
proactive approach in a child’s negotiations with the attachment figure and coordinating according to his or
her plans with those of the caregiver [4]. They also impact the internal working model of attachment; therefore, studies on attachment in middle childhood are
pertinent. Indeed, in recent years, there has been an acceleration of research on attachment in middle childhood; however, many questions remain unanswered.
One such question concerns the universality of normative trends in the attachment in middle childhood, related to a child’s essential individual characteristics such
as child’s age and sex, that are observed in studies conducted almost exclusively in highly individualistic Western cultures. However, as it will be discussed below, the
development of attachment is embedded in particular
cultural contexts [4], and thus cultural orientations concerning autonomy and relatedness might influence the
development of attachment, especially in middle childhood, when significant individuation-related processes
begin. The present paper provides some insight into developmental trends in the attachment in middle childhood by investigating the role of a child’s age, sex, and
emotionality on attachment to mothers and fathers in a
sample from Polish culture, in which boundaries between collectivistic and individualistic orientations are
somewhat blurred.
Child-parent attachment

Bowlby defined attachment as the emotional bond between an infant and his caregiver, expressing in attachment behaviors (e.g., smiling, vocalizing, crying, and
following), the main goal of which is to establish and
maintain proximity with the caregiver. The behavioral
attachment system is mainly activated by psychological
or psychical threat and serves to protect the baby. Currently, it is claimed that the attachment relationship is
rather dyad-specific [5]; hence, attachment with the

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mother may be different from the one with the father or
another caregiver. The most important determinant of
the child-parent attachment quality is the maternal sensitivity, defined as the caregiver’s ability to accurately
perceive and infer the meaning of the child’s signals, and
to respond to them instantly and appropriately [6]. The
link between maternal sensitivity and attachment security is widely supported by studies in the US and other
Western countries [7]. According to the attachment theory [8], the attachment and exploration systems are inextricably linked - children explore their environment
when they feel protected and comforted by their caregiver (the so-called “secure base” phenomenon). However, when stressed, children give up their exploratory
activities and seek proximity with their attachment figure (the so-called “safe haven” phenomenon). Children
who receive responding and calming caregiving and perceive their caregiver as helpful and available, become securely attached. However, when the caregiver is unable
to fulfill the secure base and secure haven functions adequately, the child’s sense of security becomes compromised. Two distinct styles of coping with attachment
insecurity were identified [9]. The first one, preoccupied
attachment, is characterized by a strong need for the
caregiver in stressful and novel situations and difficulty
in deriving comfort from the caregiver, which results in
limitation of the child’s exploratory behavior. On the
other hand, avoidant attachment ich characterized by
limited affective engagement with the caregiver, avoidance
of the caregiver both during exploration and reunion, and
failure to seek the caregiver for assistance with coping [6, 9].
The existing evidence suggests that more secure children
are more socially and emotionally competent, as compared
to insecure children [10], and that the attachment patterns
are quite stable over time [11].
Developmental trends in attachment in middle childhood

In attachment literature, middle childhood is characterized as a time when changes in the intensity of attachment behaviors and conditions activating and
terminating the attachment system occur. According to

Mayseless [12 p14], a decrease in the intensity of attachment behavior in middle childhood is impacted by
“preparations for refocusing and reorienting the investment in affectional attachment bond between children
and their parents or primary caregivers to others and
their autonomy.” Nevertheless, it is claimed that children
in middle childhood continue to use their parents as secure bases supporting exploration and secure havens in
a time of stress; thus, parents remain the principal attachment figures. Due to a growth in self-regulation
skills in middle childhood, the goal of the attachment
system changes from proximity to the attachment figure
(as in early childhood) to the availability of the


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attachment figure [8]. The latter one is reflected in open
communication between parent and child, parental responsiveness to child needs, and the parent’s physical accessibility to the child [13]. However, in the attachment
research, there was relatively little attention to the child’s
characteristics underlying individual differences in the
attachment in middle childhood, such as the child’s age,
sex, or temperament. Moreover, still only few studies include fathers as attachment figures, thus still little is
known about the differences between attachment to
mothers and fathers in middle childhood.
Among existing studies, Lieberman, Doyle, and Markiewicz [14] observed some significant changes in attachment security during middle childhood; 12–14 yearolds reported less relying on mothers and fathers than
did 9–11 year-olds, however, children’s perceptions of
parents’ availability did not vary with age. Moreover, it
was found that preoccupied coping with respect both to
mother and father declined with age, but avoidant coping inclined [1, 9]. These results suggest that age
changes in attachment styles in middle childhood ought
to be interpreted within the context of children’s increasing independence, autonomy from parents, and

decision-making [1].
A growing body of evidence also suggests that some
sex-specific aspects of attachment styles emerge in middle childhood [e.g., 15]. Namely, girls are classified more
frequently as secure or ambivalent while boys - as avoidant or disorganized, and those trends are observed both
in normative and different risk samples [e.g., 16] and
hold across different assessment methods [9, 17, 18]. It
is worth to note that in some studies on adult attachment, similar patterns were found, and it is observed
cross-culturally [19]. Based on previous studies, it seems
that those results are not likely to be measurementspecific or attributable to cognitive and language development. Del Giudice [15, 20] argue that the emergence
of sex differences at around 8-years old is related to a
reorganization of the endocrine mechanisms (adrenarche) that impact brain development, and thus triggers
sex-specific psychological trajectories, which are supposed to be part of a broader shift towards sex-specific
psychosocial reproductive strategies in early adulthood.
Girls display more ambivalence (preoccupation) to
maximize relatedness and support from the family.
Boys, on the other hand, display more avoidance and
emotional distance, accompanied by autonomy, competition, and status-seeking in the same-sex peer
group [15]. An alternative explanation emphasizes social influences on the development of attachment; in
the course of socialization, girls are taught to show
affiliate responses to regulate negative feelings when
stressed, while boys are spurred to react in a fight-orflight fashion [21].

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In middle childhood, some diversification in forming
affectional bonds with mothers and fathers occurs, and
different conditions that activate the attachment system
leading a child to look for support and protection from
different attachment figures [22]. Mothers are typically
seen as the secure havens to whom children turn in the

case of distress, hurt, or sickness. Fathers, in turn, are
thought to be likely to serve more as secure bases and
playmates who expose children to challenging games
and activities [23]. However, research findings are mixed,
with some studies showing increasing paternal availability over time [1], other reporting lower felt security with
mother than with father [24]. Some results also indicate
that fathers’ involvement with their children increases as
their children grow older, while mothers’ involvement is
rather constant [25]. However, the studies mentioned
above were conducted in Western cultures (mainly in
the U.S. and Canada); therefore, it is challenging to state
whether results would be similar in different than Western societies. One could expect somewhat different patterns of those trends due to the differences in fathering
views and practices that are products and expressions of
culture [26].
Moreover, the interaction of a child’s and parent’s sex
may be one of the crucial factors in children’s attachment during middle childhood. Some evidence exists
that fathers tend to be more involved with their sons
than with daughters, since fathers and sons may identify
with one another more and share similar interaction
styles [27]. The attachment research seems to confirm
those results; in the study of Diener and colleagues [28],
girls reported significantly higher attachment security
with their mothers than with their fathers, and boys reported significantly higher attachment security with their
fathers than did girls. Western studies also reveal some
specificity in links between attachment figure and the
type of attachment insecurity in middle childhood. In
Boldt, Kochanska, Grekin, and Brock’s study [29], child
attachment avoidance was higher with fathers, but ambivalence and disorganization - with mothers. Those results might reflect that children probably tend to be
more restrained with fathers and more expressive with
mothers, which results from differences in parental responsiveness to children’s emotional cues. Some evidence suggests that in Western cultures, fathers use

more punitive emotion socialization strategies than
mothers do [30]. However, those findings have not yet
been replicated in other cultures; thus, it is difficult to
say whether the differences in attachment security with
mothers and fathers among boys and girls are cultureuniversal or emic.
Relatively less is known about other than age and sex
child’s characteristics related to individual differences in
middle childhood attachment. Meanwhile, it should be


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noted that compared to earlier developmental periods,
children in middle childhood undergo more influences
outside the family and are more able to shape their environments and social interactions on their own, accordingly with their preferences and innate predispositions
[1]. Thus, Bosmans and Kerns [4] argue that in middle
childhood (as compared to infancy), parent-child
relationships might be more shaped by the dynamics of
gene-environment interactions, with even more
extensive effects of biologically determined factors on attachment. One such factor might be the child’s temperament, an innate and heritable set of traits that remain
stable over time [31]. Temperament, as a biologically determined basis of personality, seems to be one of the
most malleable factors underlying individual differences
in middle childhood attachment, as it determines a
child’s emotional reactivity, as well as the way people relate to each other [31]. However, thus far, research has
mainly focused on the role of temperament in the early
attachment [for a review, see: 32], whereas less attention
has been given to the links between temperament and
attachment in middle childhood, although it is widely

recognized that the quality of child’s attachment is a
product of the interaction between the child’s biological
dispositions and the quality of parental care [32]. Since
traits such as a child’s sensitivity to stimuli causing distress and a tendency to experience fear, anger, and dissatisfaction [31] play a crucial role in emotion regulation
and self-regulatory processes, those dispositions seem to
be valid in the context of parent-child interactions [33].
On the other hand, also attachment styles are closely
related to emotion regulation strategies, as a child employs those styles in an attempt to get basic attachment
needs meet accordingly to the attachment figure’s responsiveness [34]. However, in opposite to temperament,
attachment is not inherent, but instead, a child rebuilds
attachment representations through the interactions
with the primary caregiver [35]. Bowlby [8] argued that a
child not only integrates new experiences into existing
internal working models of attachment (assimilation)
but also revises them to accommodate current experiences with an attachment figure (accommodation). Admittedly, one of the core tenets of attachment theory
states that the quality of the child-parent attachment depends at most on the caregiver’s sensitivity and availability to the child’s cues, and his response is learned in the
interaction with the caregiver and set in internal working
models. However, it was observed that in middle childhood, children who are more emotionally reactive
tended to be more vulnerable to experience distress and
interpreted mother’s ambiguous behaviour as unsupportive, regardless of the objective meaning of her behaviour [36]. Hence, the concern arises that as children
grow older and their thinking becomes more abstract

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and reflective, those with high negative emotionality
might relatively more intensively assimilate such biased
interpretations in their attachment representations, and
they might use specific secondary attachment strategies
more profoundly than children with low negative emotionality. Some research has shown that children who
have high levels of difficult temperament were less capable of utilizing their attachment representations to

regulate their emotions [e.g., 35]. However, there is a
lack of research concerning emotionality in the context
of normative trends in the attachment in middle childhood, and no research investigated its potential interactions with age, sex, and attachment to parents in that
developmental period.
Attachment in the context of culture

Although those relatively small number of current findings add substantially to the knowledge about attachment in middle childhood, one of the major problems is
that most of the studies have been primarily confined to
Western contexts. Surprisingly, little is known about
whether the findings on predictors of individual differences and development in the attachment in middle
childhood found in Western cultures, hold within nonWestern ones. Meanwhile, the development of attachment is embedded in particular cultural contexts of
socio-political, historical, and economic circumstances
[4]. As Keller [37 p189] points, “independence from
others and personal autonomy are the ideological foundations of attachment theory with notable consequences
for the definition of parenting quality, childrearing goals,
and with respect to an understanding of desirable endpoints of development.” Indeed, cultures differ significantly in their models of autonomy and relatedness and
related to them childrearing practices or parent-child behavioural relationships [38]. Considering that the central
developmental theme of attachment in middle childhood
is the balance between a child’s growing autonomy and
the need for relatedness, cultural differences in developmental trends in the attachment might be considered in
terms of individualism and collectivism orientations
[39]. Within individualistic cultural contexts (e.g., the
U.S. or Western Europe), people place relatively greater
emphasis on independence and autonomy. In contrast,
within collectivistic cultural contexts (e.g., Japan or
China), people place a higher weight on interdependence
and relational harmony [40].
Indeed, individualistic and collectivistic values may impact the development of the behavioural attachment system [38], but there is a lack of empirical studies
systematically testing the cross-cultural differences in
developmental trends in middle childhood attachment,

and the factors explaining it. Meanwhile, recent evidence
suggests that cultural differences in attachment go far


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beyond the differences in the distribution of the attachment styles [37, 41]. For instance, Mizuta and colleagues
[42] found that Japanese and US dyads did not differ in
attachment security and maternal sensitivity during
separation-reunion episodes, but Japanese preschoolers
showed more need for bodily closeness (amae) than US
preschoolers. Moreover, amae was positively linked to
internalizing behaviours in US children but not for Japanese ones, which suggests that amae can be one of the
culture-specific attachment-related behaviours. Other
comparisons of the U.S. and Japan studies also reveal the
cultural relativity of three core hypotheses of attachment
theory: that maternal sensitivity is the antecedent of secure attachment, that secure attachment leads to social
competence, and that securely attached children use
the caregiver as a secure base for exploration [7]. For
example, the primary function of maternal sensitivity in
an individualistic view is to foster a child’s exploration
and autonomy, assert his or her desires, and to promote
the child’s individuation [7]. By contrast, in collectivistic cultures, mothers labelled as sensitive are expected
to react in anticipation of children’s signals, and their
reactions promote a child’s relatedness and emotional
closeness. Here the primary function of sensitivity is to
help the child regulate his or her emotional states and
to promote the child’s social engagement and interdependence [7, 43]. Such different notions about the

functions of maternal sensitivity are also linked with
the way attachment theorists define social competence.
In individualistic cultures, this competence entails
mainly exploration, autonomy, and a positive view of
self [7], which is essential for self-dependence. In opposite, in the collectivistic culture of Japan social competence often means dependence, self-criticism, and the
ability to coordinate one’s needs with the needs of
others [7]. There is also some evidence that even the
link between attachment and exploration seems to be
less primary in non-Western cultures [37], where attachment security is more strongly linked to social dependence and loyalty. At the same time, in Western
societies, strong relations between attachment security,
individuation, and autonomous mastery of the environment are consequently observed [37]. On the other
hand, as Bakermans-Kranenburg and collaborators [44]
postulate, in attachment research, the role of culture
should not be confused with the impacts of socioeconomic status (SES). In their study, those authors found
that even though there was a similar correlation pattern
between maternal sensitivity and infant attachment security, African-American children scored lower on attachment security than the white children. Further
analyses revealed that African-American ethnicity was
related to lower-income, which in turn affected infantmother attachment.

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What about Poland?

Despite the growing recognition that in the current era
of globalization and socio-political changes individualist–collectivist depictions of value systems and developmental goals are overly simplistic [38], little (if any) is
known about the specificity of attachment in the socalled cultures of social change [45], as those studies instead focus on the Eastern-Western dichotomy. In those
cultures, which are typical for most post-communist
countries, the boundaries between collectivistic and individualistic orientations are somewhat blurred. Despite
the rapid institutional changes, there is a much slower
change in social values, and simultaneous socialization

of dependence and independence occurs [46]. Such an
example might be fostering independence in children,
which is thought to lead to the enhancement of relational skills [38].
An example of such a culture of social change is the
Republic of Poland, an ethnically homogenous country
located in Central Europe, which in the last three decades, has undergone a swift transition to capitalism and
democracy [47]. At the end of June 2017, the population
of Poland amounted to 38 million people, with 6.9 million children aged 0–18 (35% of which were in middle
childhood [48]). However, there are relatively few studies
on child-parent attachment in Poland. For example, the
study of Czyżowska and Gurba [49] confirmed the general hypothesis about the impact of child-mother on the
later adult relationship with romantic partner: closeness
experienced in relationships with parents during childhood and adolescence was related to the feeling of intimacy with one’s partner which in turn had an impact
on the perceived quality of the relationship. Another
Polish study [50] revealed that adolescents suffering
from mixed disorders of conduct and emotions perceived their parents as less protective and revealed a
higher level of anxiety than did the control group. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there is a
lack of Polish studies on predictors of individual differences in middle childhood attachment. Moreover, still
little is known about the differences between attachment
to mothers and fathers. Therefore, it is difficult to say
whether the findings from other cultures hold within the
Polish samples.
In Poland, the most of traditional parenting practices
still promote connection to the family and other close
relationships, respect and obedience [51], but at the
same time Polish parents believe about the fundamental
requirements for children’s achievement of autonomy,
personal choice, intrinsic motivation, and self-esteem
[46]. Trommsdorff and Nauck [52], in their Value of
Children study found, that in Poland, there is greater

valuing of such developmental goals as obedience in the
family and popularity among other people, comparing to


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Germany, which is seen as a highly individualistic society. In turn, Hofstede [53] points to a smaller individualistic orientation in Poland than in Germany and in other
Western Europe countries. Another study [46] revealed
that Polish mothers are more collectivistic in their
socialization goals than German mothers, and also their
parenting practices are more in line with those values.
Moreover, Lubiewska [46] pointed out that due to the
fast cultural changes in Poland in the last decades, there
exist micro-cultural discrepancies between relatednessoriented mothers and their autonomy-oriented children,
what creates an interesting question about developmental trends in the attachment in the period, when children
expand their social worlds and gain more autonomy. At
the same time, Kerns and colleagues [1] claim that depending on social values (e.g., independence vs. interdependence) in different cultural contexts, the decline in
utilization of parents may emerge at different times.
However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no systematic research on developmental trends in the attachment in middle childhood was conducted in Poland.
Hence it is difficult to compare those trends to another
culture, especially in the context of coexistence of
autonomy-relatedness values.
The current study

As it has been mentioned before, relatively little is
known whether the findings on predictors of individual
differences in the attachment in middle childhood found
in Western cultures hold within the non-Western ones.

Moreover, relatively little attention is paid to the child’ s
characteristics underlying individual differences in the
attachment with fathers as compared to attachment with
mothers in middle childhood. Therefore, the first purpose of this study was to examine the role of a child’s
age, sex, and emotionality in a middle-childhood attachment with both parents in the Polish sample. The second aim was to compare the obtained results to those
focused on Western cultures.
The recent results show that in Poland, most of the
traditional parenting practices still promote relatedness,
respect, and obedience [51], and the Polish mothers are
still rather collectivistic in their socialization goals. There
is also a higher valuing of obedience in the family and
popularity among other people, compared to other
Western Europe countries [53]. Therefore it was predicted that in general Polish sample, children would report more preoccupied than avoidant coping strategies
with their parents (hypothesis 1).
Furthermore, in middle childhood, specific components of the attachment relationship may remain stable
with age, while others may change [14]. Moreover, in
different cultural contexts, the decline in the utilization
of parents may emerge at different times, depending on

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social values (e.g., independence vs. interdependence
[1]). Therefore, it was expected that older children
would report more avoidant coping strategies with their
parents than younger children (hypothesis 2), but there
would be no age differences in preoccupied coping strategies (hypothesis 3).
Beyond the proposed culture-specific hypotheses, a
culture-universal link between a child’s sex and attachment insecurity was also hypothesized. Existing findings
reveal the existence of universal, biologically-based
reorganization of the endocrine mechanisms triggering

sex-specific psychological trajectories in middle childhood [15, 20]. There is also cross-culturally observed
specificity in gender-socialization practices in which girls
are taught to show more affiliate responses than boys
[21]. Hence, it was expected that girls would report
more preoccupied coping strategies with their parents
than boys (hypothesis 4), and boys would report more
avoidant coping strategies than girls (hypothesis 5).
Another aim of the present study was to test the role
of emotionality (a temperamental trait depicting the
negative emotionality and intensity of emotional reactions) in middle childhood attachment. It was observed
that in middle childhood, children who are more emotionally reactive tended to be more vulnerable to experience distress, and learn to interpret the mother’s
ambiguous behavior as unsupportive [36]. Given that
biologically determined factors might have more substantial effects on attachment than during infancy [4], it
was expected that emotionality would be positively
linked to avoidant (hypothesis 6a) and preoccupied (hypothesis 6b) coping, and negatively to attachment security (hypothesis 6c) only in older children.
Regarding the fact that research is unclear to allow
one to relate a child’s sex and age to attachment security
and coping strategies in an emotionality-specific way,
the moderating role of temperament in those links was
tested as an exploratory part of this study.
The present study also had one more goal. Namely,
still unexplored are the differences between motherchild and father-child attachment in middle childhood,
and this fact applies both to Western and non-Western
cultures. As it has been said previously, some authors
suggest that mothers are typically seen as the secure havens, and fathers tend to serve more as secure bases
[23]. Research findings are mixed, with some studies
showing increasing paternal availability over time, as fathers’ involvement with their children increases as their
children grow older [1]. There is also scarcity in studies
on fathering in Poland. Therefore, given a lack of a
strong theoretical rationale, the effects of the parental

figure on a child’s security, preoccupied, and avoidant
coping was also tested as another exploratory part of this
study. Considering the role of a child’s age, sex, and


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Page 7 of 18

temperament, and how the attachment representations regarding mother and father may vary from one another may
help us to better understand each parent’s unique contribution to attachment development in middle childhood.
Understanding the developmental trends in the attachment to mothers and fathers, as well as the roles of child
characteristics and gender in middle childhood, represent essential questions in developmental research.
Comparing results of this study to the bulk of attachment research that focuses on Western cultures would
enrich our knowledge not only about the developmental
trends and individual differences in middle-childhood attachment but also it could help to understand the role
of culture in that phenomenon. Finally, examining the
role of the parent’s sex and child’s emotionality in attachment might help to better understand the underpinnings of individual differences in the attachment in
middle childhood.

Methods/design
Participants

The present study was a part of a larger research project
investigating relations between attachment, executive
functions, and mentalization in middle childhood, directed by the author of the present paper. Participants
were recruited through seven public elementary schools
in a large metropolitan area in Poland. The schools were

selected randomly and should not differ systematically
from other mainstream schools from larger Polish agglomerations. Letters were sent to parents of children
explaining the nature of the study, and informed parental consent was obtained for the participants. The initial
sample consisted of 165 children. However, 26 questionnaires from mothers did not return, and 6 of them were
incomplete. Therefore, the main analyses were conducted on data from 132 children (51% boys) aged 8–12
years (M = 9.97 years, SD = 1.41 years; for sample summary – see Table 1). The number of children in
Table 1 Sample Summary Table (N = 132)
Variable

n

M

SD

Range

Age (months)
8 year-olds

26

99,79

3,25

96–106

9 year-olds

29

114,48

2,85

108–119

10 year-olds

25

123,48

2,55

120–129

11 year-olds

27

136,35

3,83

132–143

12 year-olds

25

145,87

3,14

134–152

total sample

132

123,92

16,66

96–152

132

8,86

2,39

2,75–11,25

SES (composite)
Sex
boys

67

girls

65

particular age groups did not differ significantly, χ2(4) =
0.06, p = .99. The number of boys and girls in particular
age groups can be considered as not significantly different: χ2(1) = 0.19, p = .73 for 8-year-olds; χ2(1) = 0.27,
p = .60 for 9-year-olds; χ2(1) = 0.03, p = .86 for 10-yearolds; χ2(1) = 0.27, p = .60 for 11-year-olds and χ2(1) =
0.12, p = .72 for 12-year-olds. The sample was White
European, quite homogeneous in terms of SES (middleclass families; see also the Results section), and consisted
of two-parent families. The population of Poland is ethnically homogeneous; therefore, the sample selected for
the present study can be considered representative.

Measures
Procedure

First, the Ethics Committee for Research Projects at the
Institute of Psychology in Adam Mickiewicz University’s
approval was obtained for the project. Recruitment for
the study was conducted in seven elementary schools
and was based on voluntary submissions. Written informed consent was obtained from both the headteacher
of each school involved and the parents of all children,
before their participation. Families were invited to participate provided that they had a child participant in the
age range 8–12, and who were living with both biological parents. Given that attachment styles built on experiences within one’s family of origin during early
childhood are fairly stable from infancy to middle childhood [11], non-biological families were excluded in
order to provide the relative stability of children’s attachment bonds. Given also the broader context of the
present study (as it was mentioned before, the study was
a part of a larger research project investigating relations

between attachment and cognitive functioning in middle
childhood), children with learning disabilities were also
excluded. The screening was based on the information
from the sociodemographic questionnaire (see the Measures section). The positive response rate was 35%.
As the attachment measures were common for childmother and child-father bonds, the study was carried
out in two sessions separated by a one week break,
which served as a procedural remedy both to prevent
children’s’ fatigue and discouragement, and to control
for common method bias [54]. In the first session, children reported on attachment to one parent, whereas in
the second session, attachment to another parent was
assessed. Children were assessed individually in a quiet
room in their schools by a female experimenter. Considering the possible reading difficulties among our young
participants, the experimenter read aloud the items from
the two attachment questionnaires before the child made
the answer selection. After completion of the study, children received small gifts (sweets and stickers). Between
the sessions, mothers were asked to complete the EAS-C


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and the short sociodemographic questionnaires. No data
were missing for the variables used in the final sample.

Page 8 of 18

Child attachment security was assessed separately for
mother and father using the Polish adaptation [55] of
the Kern’s Security Scale (KSS) [56], a 15-item, a selfreport measure which is widely used in the United States

and certain European countries. The scale assesses the
child’s perceptions of the availability and responsivity of
the attachment figure, the child’s tendency to rely on the
attachment figure in the time of stress, and ease and
openness in communicating with the figure. Using Harter’s [57] “Some kids. .. other kids. ..” format, the children were asked to indicate which statement was most
like them, and then to indicate whether it was “sort of
true” or “really true.” Each item on the Security Scale
was scored from 1 to 4 with higher scores indicating a
more secure parent-child attachment. Previous research
has demonstrated the validity of this measure (see Kerns
et al., 1996; Kerns et al., 2005), with good internal
consistency (for an overview, see [58]) and high testretest correlation, r (30) = .75, over a short time interval.
The scale was also shown to have meaningful associations with other attachment measures and caregiver sensitivity [34, 56, 59]. Furthermore, the Security Scale
showed significant associations with developmental correlates of attachment, such as school adaptation, emotional and peer social competence, self-esteem, and
behavioural problem [58].
The text of the KSS was translated to the Polish language by an expert psychologist, and then another independent psychologist translated it back to English.
Disagreements in translations were resolved through discussions about the meaning of the source items. The
final version of the items, supervised by an expert in attachment research, revealed to be satisfactory. Consistent with prior works [60], our CFA results provided
evidence for the unidimensional structure of the KSS
[55]; (CFA results available upon request). The scores
were averaged to produce a single score on the continuous dimension, with a higher score reflecting perceptions of greater attachment security. In the present
study, Cronbach’s alphas were .75 and .76 for security
with mothers and fathers, respectively.

Polish adaptation by Kamza and Głogowska ([62], was
used to assess preoccupied and avoidant dimensions of
insecurity with both parents. Like the KSS, the CSQ is a
self-report measure and initially consists of 36 items (18
items per scale), which are rated using the Harter’s
‘Some kids … , but other kids … ’ format. Each item describes a situation in which a child is in distress and asks

the child to choose which would be his or her most
likely response. The Preoccupied Coping Scale assesses
the child’s over-dependency, a strong need for the attachment figure under stressful or novel situations, anxiety about separation from the attachment figure,
inability to be comforted by the attachment figure in
stressful situations, and difficulties in exploring or dealing with challenges owing to excessive need for the figure. The Avoidant Coping scale assesses the child’s
denial of the need for the attachment figure when
stressed, unwillingness to use him or her as an emotional or task-relevant resource. Each item of the Preoccupied and Avoidant Coping scales was scored as 0, 1,
or 2, with higher scores reflecting more preoccupied or
avoidant coping strategies. The Coping Strategies Questionnaire has been shown to have construct validity in
that children’s specific styles of using their caregiver to
cope with everyday stressors were related in predictable
ways to adjustment and parent-child relationships during middle childhood [9, 61]. The measure showed to
have good internal consistency; in Kerns’ study [1], alphas for preoccupied and avoidant coping with mother
were .84 and .69, respectively, and for preoccupied and
avoidant coping with father were .83 for both.
In the present study, a short version of the Polish version of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire consisting
of 20 items (10 for each scale) [13, 63] was used because
of time constraints [62]. Items that showed high itemtotal correlations were selected. In the present study,
Cronbach alphas for preoccupied and avoidant coping
with mother were .79 and .65, respectively, and for preoccupied and avoidant coping with father were .84 and
.66 respectively. CFA results provided evidence of the
two-dimensional model of the CSQ fit the data well and
achieved a good model fits both for mother-child attachment [62]. Item scores were averaged so that children
received total scores on continuous dimensions of preoccupied and avoidant coping.

Child’s preoccupied and avoidant coping strategies

Child emotionality

Younger, Corby and Perry [61] claim that continuous assessment of attachment security allows only the relative

positioning of the child on the continuum from the least
to the most secure attachment, while it does not say
anything about the specificity of the attachment insecurity, what may lead to incomplete conclusions. Therefore,
the Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ) [9], in the

Mothers were asked to complete the five-item child’s
Emotionality Scale from the Emotionality, Activity, and
Sociability Survey for Children: Parental Ratings (EASC) [31] in Polish adaptation by Oniszczenko [63]. The
scale measures the negative quality of the child’s emotions and the intensity of emotional reactions. Using a 5point scale, mothers rated how characteristic each

Child’s perceptions of attachment security


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description was of their child (1 = “not characteristic or
typical of your child,” 5 — “very characteristic or typical
of your child”). The score was computed by summing
the five items, with higher scores indicating greater
negative emotionality. The scores in the current sample
were dichotomized at the median (Me = 14.5) to form
two groups, relatively high and relatively low in emotionality, which were then compared for their means on
the attachment dependent variables (see further analyses). The internal consistency of the emotionality scale
was adequate (Cronbach’s α = .73).
Sociodemographic questionnaire

A short sociodemographic questionnaire was used, concerning essential child’s characteristics (date of birth,
sex) and their family socioeconomic status (mother’s and

father’s education, their status of employment, and family living area). Additionally, the screening question
about whether the family is a child’s biological one was
included. The general SES family index was calculated,
taking into account different weights for the three components of SES: 1.0 for parents’ education, 0.5 for employment status, and 0.25 for a place of residence. The
higher the value of that index, the higher the family SES
(range: 2 [i.e., both parents with primary education, not
working, living in the countryside] - 11.25 [i.e., both parents with higher education, working, living in the city]).
Data analyses

One hundred sixty-five children filled the Security Scale
and Coping Strategies Questionnaire. However, there
were only 132 EAS questionnaires returned completed,
hence the further main analyses were conducted with
132 cases. All statistical analyses were performed using
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version
25. All tests were 2-tailed with α = .05. First, distributions of all continuous scores were screened for normality. No multivariate outliers were found, and all of the
distributions were within bounds of moderate normality
(skewness < 3.0; kurtosis < 7.0) [64], therefore parametric
tests were used.
Results of a preliminary set of analyses are reported
first; descriptive statistics were calculated to summarize
the data, and Pearson’s correlations were conducted to
compare relationships between child’s age, sex, emotionality, SES, and the attachment-related variables. Next, a
paired-sample t-test was used to compare the intensity
of preoccupied and avoidant coping strategies with parents in the whole sample (hypothesis 1).
Due to the complexity of hypotheses and exploration
problems, a stricter significance threshold for individual
comparisons (and repeated-measurement in the case of
attachment to mother and father) was needed to compensate for the number of inferences being made.

Page 9 of 18

Therefore, instead of testing each hypothesis separately,
the effects of a child’s age, sex, temperament, and attachment figure were tested jointly for each attachment variable with separate repeated measures univariate analyses
of variance (ANOVA). This statistical approach should
provide greater insight into the connections between the
studied variables.

Results
Preliminary analyses

Descriptive statistics for attachment variables are shown
in Table 2, and for emotionality – in Table 3.
Preliminary analyses revealed that there were neither significant main effects of age (F (4, 97) = 1.70, p = .16, ηp2 = .07)
and sex (F (1, 97) = 0.04, p = .85, ηp2 = .00) on emotionality,
nor their interaction (F (4, 97) = 1.03, p = .39, ηp2 = .04). Furthermore, the sample was quite homogenous in terms of the
SES (M = 8.86, SD = 2,39, range: 2.75–11.25; 80% of mothers
and fathers had a master’s level or a professional degree, 90%
had a full-part work, and all of them lived in a big city; see
also Table 1).
Associations among age, sex, emotionality, and
attachment

Pearson’s zero-order correlation coefficients and the biserial point coefficients (for sex) were calculated to
examine associations among child individual characteristics and attachment dimensions. The results are presented in Table 4. Moderate and positive relations
between age and avoidant coping with both parents (r
(130) = .25, p < .01) and negative with preoccupied coping with mother (r (130) = −.33, p < .001) and father (r
(130) = −.34, p < .001) were found. On the other hand,
child age was not related to attachment security (ps >
.05). Emotionality correlated negatively and weakly with

attachment security with mother (but not with the
father) r (130) = −.20, p < .05. There were no significant
correlations between attachment and sex (all ps > .05).
Finally, there were no significant associations between
family SES and child variables (all ps > .05). As such, SES
was not included in subsequent analyses.
Although not correlated to the most of attachment
measures (all ps > .05, except the aforementioned link
between emotionality and attachment security with
mother), child’s sex and emotionality were included in
subsequent ANOVA analysis (see next sections) due to
the fact that they might serve as potential moderators of
the links between child characteristics or attachment figure and the dimensions of child attachment.
Preoccupied and avoidance coping strategies in the
general sample

To check whether, in the general Polish sample, children
would report more preoccupied than avoidant coping


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Page 10 of 18

Table 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and the Ranges in Scores for Attachment-Based Measures by the Child’s Sex and Age
Sex

Age N

Avoidant Coping
Mother

Preoccupied Coping
Father

Mother

Security
Father

Mother

Father

M (SD)

Range

M (SD)

Range

M (SD)

Range

M (SD)

Range

M (SD)

Range

M (SD)

Range
2.80–
3.67

Boys 8

12

0.15
(0.20)

0.00–
0.50

0.13
(0.11)

0.00–
0.30

1.01
(0.50)

0.20–
1.80

0.92
(0.59)

0.30–
2.00

3.25
(0.47)

2.27–
4.00

3.25
(0.270

9

15

0.13
(0.13)

0.00–
0.40

0.13

(0.19)

0.00–
0.60

0.89
(0.50)

0.10–
1.80

0.93
(0.59)

0.30–
1.90

3.20
(0.39)

2.40–
3.73

3.27 (0.40) 2.27–
4.00

10

13

0.25
(0.21)

0.00–
0.60

0.16
(0.28)

0.00–
0.90

0.90
(0.64)

0.00–
2.00

0.92
(0.67)

0.20–
2.00

3.18
(0.38)

2.47–
3.87

3.32 (0.42) 2.40–
3.80

11

16

0.25
(0.21)

0.00–
0.70

0.29
(0.23)

0.00–
0.80

0.67
(0.47)

0.00–
1.60

0.51
(0.40)

0.00–
1.20

3.20
(0.47)

2.07–
3.73

2.95 (0.42) 2.07–
4.00

12

11

0.53
(0.32)

0.00–
1.10

0.33
(0.29)

0.00–
0.80

0.40
(0.22)

0.10–

0.90

0.39
(0.28)

0.00–
1.00

3.07
(0.38)

2.00–
3.53

3.18 (0.25) 2.80–
3.67

8

14

0.14
(0.11)

0.00–
0.30

0.17
(0.26)

0.00–
0.80

0.98
(0.46)

0.00–
1.80

0.91
(0.50)

0.20–
1.80

3.16
(0.29)

2.67–
3.67

3.17 (0.38) 2.40–
3.73

9

14

0.20
(0.25)

0.00–
0.80

0.14
(0.22)

0.00–
0.80

0.81
(0.43)

0.20–
1.80

0.73
(0.53)

0.20–
1.80

3.23
(0.51)

1.93–
4.00

3.15 (0.34) 2.73–
3.80

10

12

0.09
(0.22)

0.00–
0.70

0.18
(0.29)

0.00–
0.90

1.01
(0.49)

0.20–
2.00

1.06
(0.62)

0.00–
2.00

3.27

(0.48)

2.33–
4.00

3.14 (0.79) 1.53–
4.00

11

11

0.19
(0.30)

0.00–
0.90

0.21
(0.21)

0.00–
0.60

0.65
(0.38)

0.20–
1.50

0.62
(0.30)

0.10–
1.10

3.20
(0.44)

2.27–
4.00

3.10 (0.38) 2.73–
4.00

12

14

0.26
(0.30)

0.00–
1.10

0.28
(0.26)

0.00–
0.70

0.43
(0.25)

0.00–
0.90

0.41
(0.38)

0.00–
1.10

3.17
(0.55)

2.40–
3.73

3.41 (0.42) 2.53–
3.67

Boys

67

0.24
(0.23)

0.00–

1.00

0.21
(0.23)

0.00–
0.90

0.77
(0.51)

0.00–
2.00

0.74
(0.56)

0.00–
2.00

3.19
(0.42)

2.07–
4.00

3.18 (0.38) 2.07–
4.00

Girls

65

0.18
(0.24)

0.00–
1.10

0.20
(0.24)

0.00–
0.90

0.79
(0.47)

0.00–
2.00

0.74
(0.52)

0.00–
2.00

3.24
(0.47)

1.93–
4.00

3.19 (0.48) 1.53–
4.00

Total

132 0.21
(0.24)

0.00–
1.10

0.20
(0.24)

0.00–
0.90

0.78
(0.49)

0.00–
2.00

0.74
(0.54)

0.00–

2.00

3.21
(0.44)

1.93–
4.00

3.19 (0.43) 1.53–
4.00

Girls

strategies with their parents (hypothesis 1), we used the
paired-sample t-test. It revealed that children reported
higher preoccupied coping both with mothers (t (164) =
11.62, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.48) and fathers (t (164) =
9.67, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.32) than the avoidant coping
(see Table 2 and Fig. 1).

Age, sex and emotionality differences in avoidant coping

To examine age (hypothesis 2) and sex (hypothesis 5)
differences in avoidant coping strategies, as well as to explore the main effects and possible interactions between
Table 3 Means, Standard Deviations, and Ranges for
Emotionality by the Child’s Age (N = 132)
Age

N

M (SD)

Range

8

26

14.15 (3.00)

9–20

9

29

15.31 (4.13)

10–25

10

25

15.04 (3.37)

11–22

11

27

15.00 (3.82)

9–25

12

25

14.24 (3.29)

8–20

Total

132

14.77 (3.54)

8–25

child’s child sex, age, as well as emotionality (Hypothesis
6a) and attachment figure, on avoidant coping, a
repeated-measures ANOVA with avoidant coping with
mothers and fathers as inter-subject variables was conducted. The results showed significant main effect of age
group on avoiding coping with both parents, F (4,
112) = 3.38, p = .01, ηp2 = .14. Tukey’s post-hoc tests indicated that: 12-year-olds reported more avoidance with
both mother and father than 8-year-olds, p = .001, 9year-olds, p = .001, and 10-year-olds, p < .01 (see Fig. 2;
for mean and standard deviations see Table 2). There

were no significant main effects of parent, child sex,
emotionality, or the interactions of those variables.
Age, sex and emotionality differences in preoccupied
coping

To examine age (hypothesis 3) and sex (hypothesis 4)
differences in preoccupied coping strategies, as well as
to explore the main effects and possible interactions between child’s child sex, age, as well as emotionality (hypothesis 6b) and attachment figure, on preoccupied
coping, a repeated-measures ANOVA with preoccupied
coping with mothers and fathers as the dependent


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Page 11 of 18

Table 4 Zero-Order Pearson Correlations among Child’s Age, Sex and Attachment-Based Measures (N = 132)
Variable

Mother

Father

SES

Age

Sex

Security

Preoccupied Coping

Avoidant Coping

Security

Preoccupied Coping

Avoidant Coping

Sex

–

–

–

−.03

−.03

.14

−.03

−.00

.02

Age

–

–

.01

−.05

−.33***

.25**

−.03

−.34***

.25**

SES

–

.09

.05

.07

.04

−.03

.02

.03

.03

Emotionality

.15

−.00

.00

−.20*

.07

.05

−.10

.05

.09

*p < 0,05; **p < 0,01; *** p < 0,001

variables, showed significant main effect of age group, F
(4, 112) = 7.86, p < .000, ηp2 = .22. Tukey’s post-hoc tests
indicated that 12-year-olds reported significantly less
preoccupied coping with both parents than did 8-yearolds, p < .001, 9-year-olds, p = .001, and 10 year-olds,
p < .001. Also 11-years-old, reported less preoccupation
with parents than did 8-year-olds, p < .01, and 10 yearolds, p = .01 (see Fig. 3; for mean and standard deviations see Table 2). No significant main effects of parent,
child sex, emotionality, or interactions of investigated
variables were found.
Age, sex and emotionality differences in attachment
security

To examine an exploratory problem, whether there were
main effects as well as interaction effects of attachment
figure (i.e. parent sex), child sex, age, as well as emotionality (hypothesis 6c) on perceived attachment security, a
repeated measures univariate analysis of variance
(ANOVA) was conducted with security with mothers
and fathers as the within-subjects factor, and child sex,
age and emotionality as the between-subjects factors.
Significant main effect of emotionality was found, F (1,

112) = 5.52, p = .02, ηp2 = .06. Pair-wise comparisons revealed that children with relatively lower emotionality
reported higher attachment security with both parents
(mother-child security: M = 3.30, SD = 0.41, father-child
security: M = 3.24, SD = 0.40) than children with relatively higher emotionality (mother-child security: M =
3.13, SD = 0.45, father-child security: M = 3.13, SD =

0.46), p > .01, Cohen’s d = 0.39 (there were no significant
differences by parent; see: Fig. 4).
Moreover, significant interaction between attachment figure, child’s sex and age was found, F (4, 51) = 2.80, p = .03,
ηp2 = .18. Analysis revealed that among 12-years-old girls
attachment security with father (M = 3.41, SD = 0.42) was
higher than security with mother (M = 3.17, SD = 0.55), F
(1, 14) = 10.57, p = .01, ηp2 = .43 (see: Fig. 5). At the same
time, boys did not differ by age with attachment security
with parents, F (1, 17) = 3.46, p = .08, ηp2 = .17. Also, no significant main effects of parent sex, child sex, age or other
interactions of investigated variables were found.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine the developmental trends in children’s perceptions of attachment

Fig. 1 Preoccupied and avoidant coping with mothers and fathers in the whole sample. Legend: error bars represent the standard error; solid line
– attachment to mother; dashed line – attachment to father


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Fig. 2 Avoidant coping as a function of child age. Legend: error bars represent the standard error; solid line – attachment to mother; dashed line
– attachment to father

Fig. 3 Preoccupied coping as a function of child age. Legend: error bars represent the standard error; solid line – attachment to mother; dashed
line – attachment to father

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Page 13 of 18

Fig. 4 Child attachment security as a function of emotionality. Legend: error bars represent the standard error; solid line – attachment to mother;
dashed line – attachment to father

Fig. 5. Child attachment security as a function of age and sex. Legend: error bars represent the standard error; solid line – attachment to mother;
dashed line – attachment to father


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security with parents as well as preoccupied and avoidant coping strategies with them, as a function of child
age, sex, emotionality and attachment figure in middle
childhood. The present study is among the first to analyse those developmental trends in the Polish sample
drawn from quite a different culture than highly individualistic Western ones, which are over-explored in the
attachment literature [37].
Regarding the fact that in Poland the boundaries between collectivistic and individualistic orientations are
somewhat blurred, and that Polish mothers are quite
overprotective and collectivistic in their socialization
goals [46], it was predicted that in general Polish sample
children would report more preoccupied than avoidant
coping strategies with their parents (hypothesis 1). Results supported that hypothesis for attachment to
mothers and fathers, noticeably with a large effect size.

Although interpretation of the findings warrants caution
because of a relatively quite a small sample size and the
potentially shared method variance, the results seem to
be consistent with the findings that participants from individualistic countries such as Germany report high
levels of avoidant attachment, whereas participants from
more collectivist countries - high levels of ambivalent attachment [46]. It is also not surprising, given that in
Poland, most of the traditional parenting practices still
promote connection to the family and other close relationships, respect, and obedience [51]. Therefore, more
research is needed to see whether this effect replicates.
Future studies should include a more diverse population
(not only the middle-class one) to explore potential
within-culture variance in the attachment in middle
childhood. As Kroonenberg and Van Ijzendoorn [65]
argue, differences in the attachment within a culture
might be higher than differences in between cultures
since there are no universal childrearing practices for
different sub-cultures.
Age differences in attachment

In line with theoretical predictions [1] and preliminary
attachment research in Western countries [1], the
current study supports the hypothesis that older children
report more avoidant coping strategies with their parents
than younger children (hypothesis 2). It might reflect
some developmental differences in children’s emotional
expression during interactions with parents, along with
changes towards greater autonomy and peer-affiliation
and the decline in utilization of parents as secure bases
and havens with age. They become less reliant on
mothers and fathers in the context of the excessive need

for assistance and support in stressful or novel
situations.
However, in opposite to hypothesis 3, younger children reported more preoccupied coping than the older

Page 14 of 18

ones. The observed developmental trend in the Polish
sample corresponds to the results from Western studies
[e.g., 1]; thus, it seems to reflect rather a cultureuniversal change in the attachment in middle childhood,
related to children’s growing autonomy and self-reliance.
Regarding the general higher preoccupied coping in Polish sample, those age differences might also reflect some
micro-cultural discrepancies between relatednessoriented mothers and their autonomy-oriented children,
pursuing towards more individualistic goals and orientations in their transition into adolescence [46].
Sex differences in attachment

A culture-universal link between a child’s sex and attachment insecurity was hypothesized; hence, it was expected that Polish girls would report more preoccupied
coping strategies with their parents than boys (hypothesis 4), and boys would report more avoidant coping
strategies than girls (hypothesis 5). Although several
studies from different cultures have indicated such
changes in child relationships with parents in middle
childhood [e.g., 16], the present findings failed to find
any sex differences in either preoccupied or avoidant
coping with either mother or father. This finding contradicts Del Giudice’s [15, 20] claim about the shift towards
sex-specific psychosocial reproductive strategies in the
transition to adolescence. It is also in contradiction with
the socialization-oriented explanations, according to
which girls are taught to show affiliate responses, while
boys are spurred to react in a more individualistic fashion [21, 51]. One possible explanation of this result is
that a child’s sex is not yet a significant factor in middle
childhood attachment in Polish culture, while it might

gain in significance in adolescence when the social roles
of girls and boys become more diverse. It might also be
that Polish girls already internalized modern individualistic values and strongly tend to emancipate and to be
similarly independent, self-reliant, and autonomous that
boys are. However, such a result can be instead due to
many other factors, not included in the present study.
Future research should include more proximal variables
such as parental practices in gender socialization as well
as development in cognition and another aspect that
might be valid.
Emotionality and attachment

Another aim of the present study was to check the role
of emotionality in middle childhood attachment. Regarding the Bosmans and Kerns [4] claim that in middle
childhood biologically determined factors might have
more substantial effects on attachment than during infancy and preschool years, it was expected that emotionality, as depicting biologically-grounded negative quality
of a child’s emotions and high intensity of emotional


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reactions, would be positively linked to avoidant (Hypothesis 6a) and preoccupied (hypothesis 6b) coping,
and negatively to attachment security (hypothesis 6c)
only in older children. However, the results did not support those hypotheses. Instead, they revealed that emotionality does not become more valid for attachment as
children age. On the other hand, exploratory analyses revealed that children with relatively lower emotionality
reported higher attachment security with both parents
than children with relatively higher emotionality. At the
same time, there were no significant main effects of

emotionality on avoidant and preoccupied coping strategies. Those findings suggest that high degrees of child’s
sensitivity to distressing stimuli and a tendency to experience negative emotions might impact a child’s perceptions of caregiver’s availability in middle childhood. It
also might make those children interpret parent’s ambiguous behaviour as unsupportive and unresponsive, regardless of the objective meaning of his behaviour [36].
Although the quality of the early child-parent attachment depends at most on the caregiver’s sensitivity and
availability to the child’s cues, the concern arises that as
children grow older and their cognitive processes develop, those with high negative emotionality might relatively more intensively assimilate biased interpretations
of attachment figure secure base and secure haven behaviour in their internal working models. The obtained
result also seems to be in line with the studies revealing
that children with high levels of difficult temperament
are less capable of utilizing their attachment representations to regulate their emotions [35]. Second, our results
revealed that emotionality links to reports of general
felt-security rather than to attachment preoccupation or
avoidance. It might suggest that in middle childhood,
temperament might impact the child’s perceptions of
the availability and responsivity of the attachment figure
in general, rather than impacting the specific degree of
the child’s overdependency or denial of the need for the
attachment figure. However, longitudinal studies are
needed to confirm that hypothesis. Finally, this finding
highlights the importance of Younger and colleagues’
[61] claims that attachment security is both conceptually
and operationally “something more” than low levels of
attachment avoidance and preoccupation, confirming
the need to consider multiple measures of attachment in
middle childhood, and not only restricting to assessing
particular insecurities. Since there is a lack of crosscultural studies investigating emotionality and attachment in middle childhood, it is quite challenging to discuss obtained results in the context of culture. Future
research is needed, including also multiple sources on
emotionality assessment. In the present study, it based
on mothers’ reports. Regarding that rating of child temperament might differ across the parents [31], it is worth

Page 15 of 18

to check, whether similar results would be obtained if fathers assessed the child’s emotionality.
The role of attachment figure

Another goal of the study was to explore the attachment
in middle childhood as a function of the attachment figure, along with possible interaction effects of attachment
figure with a child’s characteristics. The analysis revealed
that 12-year-old girls reported higher security in attachment with fathers compared to attachment with
mothers; however, there were no such differences in
boys. That result is in line with previous studies showing
increasing paternal availability over time [1], and the
other ones reporting lower felt security with mother
than with father [24]. Therefore it suggests that for Polish girls, fathers become more open to communication
and more responsive in times of need, as compared to
mothers by the beginning of adolescence. They might
also become somewhat primary attachment figures in
the transition to adolescence. However, longitudinal explorations are needed to verify that trend. On the other
hand, it is unclear whether fathers do are more akin to
serve as secure havens and secure bases for their growing daughters than mothers do, or if other significant
factors contribute to this issue. Further research should
be conducted to examine more thoroughly the nature of
the father-child attachment, including more cultureoriented research.
Limitations of the study

Although this study adds to the literature by investigating the effects of a child’s characteristics on attachment
to mother and father in middle childhood, these findings
should also be interpreted with some caution. More specifically, the study’s cross-sectional design does not allow
one to investigate the developmental change in the attachment in middle childhood. Therefore, systematic
longitudinal studies are necessary to establish how attachment changes in middle childhood and which factors explain the change.

A relatively small sample size and the homogeneity of
our sample limits the generalization of these findings
only to the middle-class Polish population. It is essential
to replicate those results in more ethnically and economically diverse samples. In future studies, singleparent families or adoptive ones should also be included
to explore how attachment develops in diverse family
structures, and whether there are some interactions between cultural values and family structures.
There are also some validity concerns around selfreport measures such as difficulties in conscious access
to internal working models, the risk for response bias
and social desirability, or shared method bias [4]. Hence
some alternative tools should be used in future studies


Kamza BMC Psychology

(2019) 7:79

to corroborate the significance of the presented findings.
Analysing children’s spontaneous narratives might give
some more insights into cultural differences between
children’s perceptions of attachment and their mental
representations of the self in Poland and other cultures
(cf. [66]). Several recent studies (e.g., [58]) reveal that
self-reports on attachment correlate with narrative measures of attachment representations in middle childhood.
Moreover, measures we used might be culturally biased,
especially towards the Western way of thinking about attachment [7], −as some authors call into question the
cultural universality of such construct as a secure base,
individuation, and exploration (see Background). It is
also worth to note that in the present study, a child’s
emotionality was assessed through a self-report completed by mothers. More indirect, physiological measures
of the child’s emotionality would add further information to this area of study.

Finally, as Tamis-LeMonda [38] argues, cultural values
and family developmental goals may dynamically coexist
in different constellations as conflicting, additive, or
functionally dependent. Therefore, future studies would
be more informative if dominant cultural patterns, along
with individual cultural orientations, were assessed directly and then examined with individual differences and
developmental changes in the attachment in different
cultures.

Conclusions
The present study is the first one to analyse developmental trends in the attachment in Polish sample, drawn
from quite a different culture than highly individualistic
Western ones, which are over-explored in the attachment literature [37]. The current study extends previous
work on attachment in middle childhood not only by
examining developmental trends in Polish sample but
also by including the attachment to fathers and testing a
possible, increasing role of temperament on attachment
to both parents after infancy and preschool years. The
findings broaden our knowledge about individual differences in attachment during middle childhood, an area of
research that has been neglected relative to research on
other periods of the life span. Some of the results replicated prior studies conducted in Western cultures (i.e.,
with older children being less preoccupied and more
avoidant in their coping strategies with parents, and
older girls reporting higher felt-security with their fathers than with mothers). However, some novel findings
were also found (i.e., no links between child’s sex and
preoccupied and avoidant coping; higher rates of preoccupied coping than the avoidant one in the general
sample; higher attachment security with both parents in
children with relatively lower emotionality as compared
to children with the relatively higher one. At the current

Page 16 of 18

stage of the research, it is difficult to say whether those
results might also be generalized to children coming
from other Eastern European countries. Regarding the
fact that among other eastern countries, Poland is overcoming the most advanced socio-political change, it
seems possible that there is some specificity in the Polish
sample. However, any inferences should be made with
caution until more replication studies are conducted.
Abbreviations
CSQ: Coping Strategies Questionnaire; EAS-C: Emotionality, Activity, and
Sociability Survey for Children; KSS: Kern’s Security Scale; SES: socioeconomic
status
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Kathryn A. Kerns, Karolina Głogowska, and David Perry for
their generous sharing of the measures. She thanks Simona DiFolco and
Marina Fuertes for their valuable comments on the first version of the
manuscript. Finally, she also thanks all of the parents and children who
participated in the study.
Author’s details
1
SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland; Faculty of
Psychology and Law in Poznań.
Author’s contribution
AK is the only author; she designed the study, collected and analyzed the
presented data, and drafted the manuscript.
Funding
This study was funded by financial support for young researchers by the
Institute of Psychology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. The
funding body has no input in the design of the study, data collection,

analysis, and interpretation of data.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets used and analysed during the current study are available from
the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in
accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national
research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later
amendments or comparable ethical standards. The Ethics Committee for
Research Projects at the Institute of Psychology in Adam Mickiewicz
University’s approval was obtained for the project. Written informed consent
was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The author declares that she has no competing interests.
Received: 6 August 2019 Accepted: 29 November 2019

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